The Nature of the Beast: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel

The best one yet. Inspector Gamache is even more intuitive as a retired presence. I was sorry to find out that Gamache did have weaknesses.

I didn’t love this book at first. In fact I read it twice. The first time last year then I picked it up again this year. As in all her books Ms Penny weaved her words around you until you can’t let go and must read every word until the very end.I loved the new discoveries and observations I found in not only reading this book but in its re-reading.

A huge gun as big as a house with a wondrous beast, a monster on it! That was the story the little boy who lived in his imagination shouted in the bistro. And from that shout that almost no one believed came an international espionage plot, dead bodies and a.new group of people finding their way to Three Pines. A compelling story with twists and information about the people of Three Pines never before told.

An unbelievable but true story. Very scary making you wonder what else we don’t know about what goes on in govt & military circles

It took me FOUR DAYS near the end of this book. You can cut the tension with a knife. I'm not going to spill any beans, but I will say this is one of the best in this series. You won't regret the time you spend with this book.

The characters of Three Pines seem like home. In this novel as the others, it is a place to retreat and recover. It doesn't hurt that the author mentions Neil Young's songs, both of which I love.

I n have enjoyed from her first Gamache to this, her irrefutable skill. With suspense, situational description and well.placed humor. Never flowery, never too verbose in how she reveals her characters, or mentally places the who, what, where, why and what it's solidly into the minds of her readers. As one who appreciates telling a good story well and one who seeks to achieve the rhythm and seemingly flawless flow Louise Penny creates time after, I have great admiration and gratitude for her providing great reads.

Another fabulous, intricate mystery. Louise Penny’s books combine murder and mystery and yet are heartwarming . Her characters become the reader’s friends and we care for them and what might happen as if they are our family. A tear shed at just the right time reminds you how much you love her books.

In the book, The Naturd if the Beast, Louise Ownny has captured the tremendous essence of each of her characters and built many layers to this murder mystery. Her plot is excellent and bone chilling as the reader explores the absolute concern if a super gun was aimed at a selected target and what it may take to stop it

After finishing this book, I’ve concluded that it’s my favorite one so far. And that says a lot considering how intrigued and entranced I am by all of the other Chief Inspector Gamache books I’ve read to this point.All of these books are something special, a combination of a loving and peaceful small town offering respite and salvation to those who find it, coupled with depth & insights into humanity & the inhumanity with which it struggles. The literary & historical references intrigued me, and caused me to research some of them either because they were completely unknown to me or because I was familiar and yet forgetful. The characters come alive and grow more familiar and yet more complex with each book. Louise Penny’s character development is skillfully and carefully crafted, as I believe her love of these characters grew as she became more and more familiar with them herselfI can’t say enough. Truly remarkable story hidden behind the pages of a murder mystery. Can’t wait to read the next one.

I love this stuff, and it was difficult to give any of these Three Pine mysteries anything but a 5 star. On occasion it seems Penny can really create situations that are hard to find believable. Almost James Bond scenarios. It seems unnecessary, but you learn to love the characters so much they’re all great reads.

Another in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, in which a 9 year-old boy is killed and thus begins a meandering mystery that is based on a real series of events that occurred in Canada at about the time of the Iraq War. But the child isn't the only one done in. So also is a woman who knew more than she admitted and whose death finally leads the now-retired Chief Inspector to the person or person who have the blood of two people on their hands, but could be many thousands more.The question thus becomes, can the Inspector discover the missing elements that would make that giant bomb the child discovered viable as a killing machine? Complexities abound, as do the bad people. Almost too many to count.

Chief Inspector Gamache #11We are back in Three Pines for most of the story. But seriously, this town must have the highest per-capita murder rate in all of Canada! Yet I’d still move there in a heartbeat!Gamache is still adjusting to retirement, Isabelle Lacoste is Chief Inspector now and Jean Guy is her second in command.One of the missteps in writing books with essentially the same characters and the same setting, is inadvertently writing the same book, over and over. However Louise Penny does a marvelous job of making each book different. The characters grow and have depth to them that can’t be done in a single book or short series.“The Nature of the Beast” is a slight departure from other books as Penny explores weapons of war and the balance between good and evil as well as peace and chaos. I was surprised to read in the author’s note at the end, that this seemingly preposterous tale is all based on real people and real events! Penny pulled some interesting angles of the Canadian legal/political system in with this novel, something that adds to the story rather than detracting. She does so in her own way, so as not to make it look like a carbon copy of the US or UK systems, thereby further individualising her work.There were some slow parts of the book that drone on a bit and at times seemed repetitive. And with that said, anyone who loves mysteries with great characters would love this series.

I thought my last review of Louise Penny would be sufficient to capture my admiration and recognition of her deeply refined gift which go so far beyond entertainment in the mystery genre, yet here we are, again. This time she has entered the highest estate of justice and morality for us to contemplate: the sacrifice of a few for the many in a civilized society and when is that an appropriate decision, if ever. We are facing real evil here of Armageddon proportions, and balancing it against former Chief Inspector Gamâche (sorry my French is old world and old-fashioned, we are who we are), new Chief Inspector, Beauvoir, and the citizenry of TroisPins (a modern Camelot, with issues), hardly a fair fight even in fiction.What comes to light through this sagacious, but not simple mystery, is we must exercise the very very best of ourselves, and maybe even some of the not so very good in order to succeed one day at a time. I was profoundly moved, completely unexpectedly, after all, isn't this just a mystery, a police procedural, Canadian at that? Canadian is not a slur, but a comment ONLY, that this is not where I would go searching for deep philosophical issues about war, Viet Nam, draft dodging nor death penalty analyses, being from Texas with its attendant fast lane death chamber.If you want to learn something about yourself, Canada, and perhaps even where you stand in the structure of humanity and belief in human nature, pay close attention to Mme. Penny and M. Gamâche in this book: you may learn more than you dreamed possible and you may not like it. You won't forget it. I won't. Merci, Madame.

When a local boy from the Village of Three Pines who is known for "crying wolf", his tall tales and his exaggerated stories claims to have found the biggest gun ever in the neighboring woods everyone looks the other way. Why should they believe this crazy little kid, the one known for his overactive imagination? But the next day Laurent is found, dead. The circumstances appear to be a hit and run but Gamache isn't so sure. Something seems off. Had Laurent actually made an important discovery? Did someone kill him to keep their secret safe? If so, where is this supposed gun?Former Chief Inspector Armand Gamache & wife Reine-Marie have retired to Three Pines. Isabelle Lacoste is the new Chief Inspector and Jean-Guy Beauvoir is her first assistant. Both Lacoste and Beauvoir welcome Gamache’s input into the case. Together they will find the legendary gun but in learning its history they quickly realize that there is much, much more at stake. Before the mystery is solved they will first have to find the monster and the plans behind the crimes. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️The Nature of the Beast is book 11 in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series. Although each is a 5 star book, as in any series, some are better than others. This one is especially interesting because it contains a great deal of historical events that occurred during my lifetime, yet although my husband and I would have been in our late 30’s, early 40’s neither of us recall anything about a massive missile launcher called “Baby Babylon”. Fortunately, author Louise Penny fills her readers in on the background in her “Author’s Notes”.

Once again, Louise Penny has written a very fine novel. This is the eleventh novel featuring Chief Inspector Gamache and there is nothing repetitive or formulaic about it. She writes mysteries that are as skillfully crafted as any literary novel. This is a series that should be read in order or you will not know the characters, the setting or be able to follow the story with the same attachment. Louise Penny has created memorable characters that a reader can care about. The series is set in Canada and setting is an integral part of the story. Some of the stories go farther afield, but this one is set almost exclusively in the mythical Three Pines. Our hero Armand Gamache has retired as chief homicide detective of the Montreal Surete and moved to Three Pines. Three Pines may be a special place of sanctuary, but real people live there, and the real world intrudes. The earlier volumes could be characterized as police procedural mysteries. This one continues in that vein, because the police department has come to him. The dynamics of the story are altered because Gamache has retired, but he still is part of the investigation. Every volume in the series touches in some part on the village of Three Pines. The story begins with a boisterous child who bursts in with a story of finding an enormous gun with a monster. He is a child of great imagination and role playing, so his tale is ignored until he is found dead. Like all the Inspector Gamache novels, the plot is complex, the investigation is tricky, and people are not always what they seem. This story brings in arms dealers, war crimes, spies, serial killers, and draft dodgers. Only a very skilled writer could make it work. Louise Penny writes of terrible deeds and great evil with a very delicate touch. Her ability to hint and to suggest about the terrible deeds and great evil work to create much stronger emotions in the reader than full gruesome descriptions would. She does an excellent job of tying together the threads of the story in a credible fashion that does not rely on coincidence or Deus Ex Machina. The series and this book have many references to art, beauty, and philosophy that I find interesting and enlightening. Her pacing is good, and she does a very good job of creating suspense and tension. Louise Penny is a very skilled writer and there were several places in her book where I had to pause and just appreciate how she had expressed key insights. I appreciate the basic decency and kindness of many of the continuing characters which our author creates without being sappy. Ruth is just a wonderful character and her poetry is always entertaining. There is no sex and not much graphic violence even as the characters do battle with evil. Louise Penny’s books have always been a series that we have followed like those by Martin Walker, Paul Doiron, Peter May, Ann Cleeves, Mark Pryor, Elly Griffiths, Jean-Luc Bannalec and few others.

Saigon fell in April of 1975. Louise Penny was around 17 years old, a Canadian and not a likely participant in the chaos of the era. And yet she did succeed remarkably well in providing a picture of what seemed to us at the time to be the end of our country as we knew it. But more so, she traced those apocalyptic times to the current day and to the evolution of this era of post-ICBM terror. And more amazing, she did this without her plot leaving Canada!Clearly, the book is different from her other novels. It concentrated more on history and its impact on individuals rather than the other way around. I didn’t think that it was possible for someone not really living through those times to understand what it was like. Vietnam made us realize, I think, for the first time, that we could lose as a nation, that we did make morally ambiguous and even morally reprehensible decisions as a people - that we could simply be flat out wrong. And this continues in other forms to this very day.The “device” Penny used was the story of Al Lepage, a guy who, on the surface, was a Vietnam draft dodger. His story (much of which was fabricated and some of it was true) really acted like a prism casting out just about all of the “colors” of national thought on our never ending succession of wars since the end of the 20th century. It was his story that made the book.Yes, the kindly Gamache with the spine of steel was a main character. But I think, if you are to really understand the import of the book, you have to realize that Lepage and the decisions he made are really its main subject.This book tells what we felt like, living through this. Many of us felt “my country right or wrong.” On one end of this spectrum were the people involved in My Lai (figuring prominently in the book.) Moving leftward were “simple patriots” who felt questioning a government decision was treasonous and would lead to more chaos. On the other end of the spectrum were the activists, who thought the wars were immoral, and had to stop – with them!In the middle, was the main group of those affected. We felt the whole thing was stupid and we should ignore it and it would go away. We didn’t feel any of this stuff was worth dying for or getting maimed for. We didn’t want to end up in a box or as a permanent drain on our families or loved ones. In the ranks of death you will not find us! From this, you can understand why this was a “class war” devastating the poor and the minority populations far more than those of the middle class and the rich. But the course of all our lives was irrevocably altered as a result of political decisions and our own decisions. We may have launched weak protests or not at all.But the “survivors” ended up working in the same industry that produced the horrendous weapons that are the subject of the book. Well, maybe not that horrendous. And maybe, we can hope, that many of these efforts led to really useful tools to improve health and the world economy. That was the main (or only) way for many to support themselves or their families in that period in time. And so our lives were channeled in directions we had no control of. Some of these directions led into the really black areas of our society. How can I tell you what I saw?Maybe I’m wrong. But personally, I think Penny “lucked out” on this. I don’t think she could have really known what it was like, to live through Vietnam, through the wars with Iraq, to constantly be made to make moral and personal decisions on these historical issues. But she did create an amazingly realistic story telling us what probably happened.Let’s move back from personal experience. In reading this book, again, I feel obligated to give you my read of its mistakes. In the past, Penny’s books lost a lot in their rather illogical character motivations. Here, that certainly wasn’t the case. I do think she “clumped” the plot summary into a few pages at the end of the novel. It was only in the appendix that she elaborated on the Mossad involvement in the whole thing. Also, I have to warn you, if you’re looking for a normal Gamache mystery, you won’t find it here. But all-and-all, this was a superior book! I think you should read it.

Louise Penny is one of the most accomplished authors writing today. Her latest proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt. This novel is the eleventh in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series and builds on previous stories to make the reader feel at home in the small town of Three Pines. Laurent Lepage is a nine-year-old boy who keeps the town spellbound by his antics like seeing aliens, dinosaurs, and winged beasts in the woods. Then, he disappears and the village suspects that possibly some of his stories may be true.His body is found in a ditch by the side of a road and looks like an accident. But, a closer look reveals that he could not landed in his position by being thrown from his bike. A frantic search begins for the truth. One expedition into the deeper forest yields an enclosure covers by vines on top of netting. There the villagers find an enormous gun that aims straight for their southern neighbor, the USA. An amazing as to how the gun was constructed and by whom intrigues the reader and sets off a sequence of events that leads to another murder, an old crime, and an old betrayal. Gamache discovers that years before, a man committed a crime so vile that only Gamance listened to the gory details at the trial. He finds out that the man had visited Three Pines and was behind the terrible weapon found in the woods. Ruth Zardo, the town's poet, had written about the man who had first come to her door. She had sent him to another village and now feels guilty. She writes: " And now it is now, and the dark thing is here." Armand, the former head of homicide for the Surete du Quebec, must fa e the possibility that unfailing to believe the boy, he has played a terrible part in what id to happen. Louise Penny is an exceptional storyteller and this is an incredible story indeed. I give it five stars and highly recommend it.

Inspector Armand Gamache has retired to the little village of Three Pines. He and his wife are there to recover, regain strength and just enjoy the quiet comfort of a small village, good friends and quiet solitude.One of the villages is a nine year old boy who loves to pretend that he is fighting off alien invaders, enemy combatants or criminals of all stripes to save and protect the village. He can be a nuisance some times running into town and yelling about an invasion, kind of like the boy who cries wolf so many times that people quit listening. But Armand loves the little guy and usually listens to him. But this time Laurent Lepage is trying to tell everyone about a gigantic gun hidden in the forest along with a monster. No one believes him, not even Armand.The next day the boy goes missing. The following day he is found dead. Was it an accident or murder? Armand thinks it was murder but the police think accident. He calls his old friends up and asks them to take another look and convinces them that it was murder.That sets the stage for the strangest of all discoveries and a case that is not just police jurisdiction but also has implications for National Security. They find Laurent's large gun and it is the biggest "Super Gun" anyone has ever seen. But what is it doing in the forest under camouflage that has been in place for most likely decades?Then a second murder takes place and everyone is scrambling to determine who, what, why and how these murders are happening. So much for retirement. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is back on the case and helping and watching his associates (his disciples) do their job and bring to justice the criminals involved, or do they?Louise Penny takes a small village with little in the way of value and turns it into a scene of international importance. Her writing is first rate and has an edge to it that keeps you involved, keeps you guessing and makes you sit down and "Think," which is what Armand Gamache would do.I love this series and this is just another great book in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series.

I've never reviewed a book I haven't finished reading, but I have become bogged down about halfway through this one. For me, it's become the opposite of page-turner, so I decided to check the reviews to see what others think, and to leave my thoughts, as well. I love Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series, love the characters of Three Pines. Until now, have loved the plot lines. I am hopeful this story will take a turn that re-engages me and so have given it three stars out of a sense of fair play, but even unfinished, I know I would never be able to give it a better rating, no matter what happens from here on out. Here's my problem: The story centers (so far, and I'm fully halfway through) around a big gun. Not really around the murder of a child, but around this really big gun. The descriptions of the gun and the "monster" on it are overwrought and frankly unbelievable. If a man can see the tops of the trees in the forest, how can he not see the top of a large gun hidden within the forest, even with the strongest lights beaming upon it? What's with description of the giant extension cord plug and outlet for the forensic lights? How does an engraving cause people to have such visceral reactions of fear? I feel as if every fifth word is "gun" or "supergun". Armand Gamache, himself, feels the need to point out that "guns are dangerous", like a public service announcement or something. I don't know, but don't really believe, Louise Penny's intent was to write a fear-ridden, anti-gun-hysteria piece of propaganda, but that's how this is coming across to me. And that is killing the whole "suspension of disbelief" thing. When I read a Louise Penny novel, I want to be transported to Three Pines, where everyone is accepted and loved, and where everyone is extraordinarily interesting, intelligent, and talented. Where everyone is friends. And I want to be engrossed in a mystery where I know the honorable will prevail along the way. This story goes there, but it does not take me with it, and it's making me sad. Another problem is that for a village not on any map, only two current residents lived there 30 years ago? And lots of random people seem to have come and gone and are coming and going, pertaining to the gun? Nah..... I look forward to the next novel in the series, and hope it won't focus on firearms so much...perhaps a club, knife, or candlestick!?! Too much gun, gun, gun talk.